


"Thrifty in a Rich Man's World"

by Hikaru Yuy (SailorVFan10)



Series: Winnermart Oneshots [4]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-24
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-18 13:56:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2350832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorVFan10/pseuds/Hikaru%20Yuy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heero thinks a guide to being a parent will help him learn to be a good father to his impending children. Kat tells him not all guides are created equal...or are of any use at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Thrifty in a Rich Man's World"

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in Winnermart 'verse.

Heero, like most new parents with a vague sort of clue about child rearing, was reading and attempting to memorise one of those latest edition "handbook to parenting" books. This one was titled _How to Raise a Thrifty Baby_. Heero didn't have to necessarily worry about saving money—he was married to a Winner, after all—but it didn't hurt to instill the value and meaning of money in his children instead of watching them slowly drown in debt, and it didn't hurt to raise children without spending shit tons of money in the process—the average child from birth to year eighteen cost over 200,000 credits, and that didn't include college tuition. Again, Heero didn't have to worry about the price tag because Quatre could more than afford the brood of children they planned on having, but if they didn't have to spend 200,000 credits (or more, because the price of living kept going up) per child watching them reach adulthood, why should they?

He paced back and forth in the nursery as he carefully read each page, reading each word to himself in a murmur as he gently stroked his growing baby bump.  
"Should we use cloth diapers?" Heero asked Duo, who was busy assembling a Babies 'r' Us crib draped in yellows and pinks. Duo gave him a look as he wrinkled his nose.  
 _That would be a 'no' on that_.  
"We don't need to buy bath toys apparently—plastic drink bottles and cups and old detergent caps apparently work just as well." Heero stopped his pacing briefly. "I guess babies are easily amused?"  
Duo shrugged in response as he read the instructions that thankfully made more sense than the ones for the furniture they'd bought from IKEA nearly a year ago.

"We're going to need powders and wipes and special soaps and lotions..." Heero resumed his pacing. He was going to wear a track in the brand new carpeting. "You can make your own baby wipes."  
"Ro," Duo said, "we can buy the Equal brand at Winnermart for 88 cents for a sixty count. We don't need to make our own." Duo turned to face his husband. "We ain't poor."  
"Thrifty doesn't mean you're poor."  
"Heero, I'm sure Kat don't care if we buy a couple creds' worth of baby wipes since we'll need 'em."  
"We can save by making our own baby food."

Duo screwed in the last screw for the frame. Now he needed to shove the mattress inside it. The mattress that was...somewhere.  
" _That_ I will insist on since who the hell knows what's in those baby food jars anymore," Duo said. "Now where'd we put the mattress?"  
"It's in the computer room," Heero said. "With this place in the middle of being painted and everything all over the place, there wasn't room."  
"Right, right." Duo wiped his hands on his jeans before leaving to retrieve said mattress.

"Should we give our kids an allowance?" Heero asked when Duo came back hefting the mattress inside. He leaned it against the wall next to the crib before letting out a sigh.  
"Ro, the kids ain't even born yet and you're talking about _allowances_."  
Heero shrugged. "It's never too early to think about these things. I plan for all contingencies."  
"I'm all for planning ahead, but there's such thing as _too much_ future planning."  
"Maybe we should let Kat worry about that," Heero amended.  
"I grew up just fine without one." Duo peered over the top of the book. "The hell is in there, anyway?"  
"Parenting advice," Heero said, "for saving money and passing it on to your kids."

Duo gave him another look, this one more deadpan and _really, Heero, really?_ than the last.  
"Don't look at me like that," Heero said in response. "I think it's important to talk about these things. Like chores."  
Duo snorted. "Chores? Jesus Christ."  
"It says we should make a chores chart. We could put it on the fridge."  
Duo hefted the mattress into the crib.  
"It's a bad sign when it says 'remember to praise your child for a job well done'. Do people not do that?"  
"No," Duo said. "I don't see parents do much of anything these days. Look at the brats who end up at our store, babe. Kids are practically hanging off the lighting fixtures and the parents do not even pretend to give a fuck."  
"Our kids aren't going to be like that."

Duo grinned before heading over to the jumbled mess on the other side of the nursery that was another crib.  
"It recommends once an allowance is doled out that we start explaining how credit cards work."  
"Let Kat handle that," Duo said. "He can bore the kids to death about scheduling payments and why paying interest on shit bought two years ago is a bad thing."  
Heero sat down next to Duo. "There is a lot of shit to think about."  
"There is," Duo said, as he studied the instructions. This crib, bought by Iria, was from IKEA, and therefore the instructions needed to be deciphered before he could begin to build it. Heero leaned his head on Duo's shoulder.

"Did you picture us being twenty-five and raising kids?"  
Duo put the instructions on his lap. "...I did think about it, yeah." He leaned back, resting on his arms. "Although if things went how I wanted...we would've had like, maybe two kids by now. And they'd have your eyes and my smile and people would fight over who resembled who more..."  
"Things can still go as you wanted...just a little on the delayed side," Heero said, book face down on the floor.

The front door slammed shut and Heero could hear excited footsteps coming up the stairs. Quatre stood in the doorway half out of breath, arms filled with bags and bags of things Heero couldn't even begin to guess at this point. His face was red from wearing a winter coat in a house that was a warm seventy-five degrees. Duo sat up.  
"What'd ya do, rob a department store?"  
"No," Quatre said. "No, there were some—I saw some fliers whilst out on lunch today at work, since we always have the latest ads for ad match, and I couldn't help but stop in and..." He grinned sheepishly. "There were a lot of sales."  
"Okay, and what'd ya buy?"

Kat peeked inside one of the bags. "Baby clothes. I know babies go through clothes really fast, so I didn't feel bad spending thirty credits on all of this. Besides, we plan on having more, so we can always pass them down..." Hand-me-downs was a concept foreign to Quatre since being the only boy entitled him to brand new everything. "What have you two been up to?"  
Duo gestured to the cribs. "Been buildin'. I know they're not due for a few months yet, but it's better to have it built and ready than having to run around in haste." He gestured to Heero with his head. "He's been busy reading."  
Quatre raised an eyebrow. "Reading what?"  
"Parenting guides."

Quatre shrugged off his coat after dropping the bags onto the floor.  
"Heero, you don't really—you can't exactly learn parenting from a book. Everyone has a different style. You have to learn it through experience."  
Heero picked the book up, closing it after a moment's consideration. "I just don't want to fuck this up."  
"You won't," Quatre said. "You have Duo and you have me. Together we can figure this whole 'parenthood' thing out."


End file.
